Proposal would revise, delay Oak Cliff-downtown shuttle service

The launch of a DART shuttle bus service between downtown Dallas and north Oak Cliff will be delayed until Nov. 4, according to a revised plan by the transit agency staff.

A proposal before DART’s committee-of-the-whole and board on Tuesday would create a new Route 722, linking Oak Cliff and the central business district.

If approved, buses on the tourist-oriented route would operate every 15 minutes from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday with stops at major destinations such as Klyde Warren Park, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the Omni Dallas Hotel and the Bishop Arts District.

The route would include a north Oak Cliff loop along portions of Davis Street, Edgefield Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard.

DART’s committee-of-the-whole approved a similar service in May. Plans called for operations to begin in late August on portions of existing bus routes 21 and 49 including the Stemmons Corridor and Cedars area.

But in the interest of economy, efficiency and marketing, the DART staff came up with a shorter, separate Route 722, with operations delayed until the arrival of smaller 30-foot-long buses, said Todd Plesko, the agency’s vice president for planning and development. Routes 21 and 49 will remain unchanged, he said.

“We’re all on board now,” she said. The new route “serves the same mission but will be a bit more user-friendly so it meets our basic mission.”

Downtown Dallas will contribute $500,000 toward the two-year pilot program’s total $2.6 million cost. The city will pay $800,000, with a federal grant and DART covering the rest.

The Oak Cliff loop increased the shuttle’s annual cost by $260,000. But the revised routing will reduce that overrun to $140,000 and changes to another bus route will make that up, Plesko said.

The Route 722 service is likely to change with completion of the streetcar line from downtown to Oak Cliff, he said.

DART probably would run shuttle buses from the line’s terminus at Beckley Avenue and Colorado Boulevard to the Bishop Arts District and on to the Oak Cliff loop, Plesko said. The downtown portion would remain unchanged.

“That’s the thinking now,” he said.

Officials had targeted completion of the streetcar to Oak Cliff by the end of October 2014. But a challenge of the contract for the project’s rail cars delayed final design of the line.

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